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PrintSAUDI ARABIAN MATHEMATICAL COMPETITIONS
Saudi Arabia number theory
Problem
Find the smallest prime such that where are positive integers.
Solution
Since then must have the form ; otherwise, is divisible by which implies that , a contradiction.
Note that so in modulo , number is congruent to either or modulo , but then .
Continue, so by taking modulo , it gives is congruent to in modulo . Similarly, by considering two equations and , we have and .
These congruences can be put together as is congruent to The first smallest values that satisfy the previous congruence are and it is easy to check that the smallest prime solution is .
And it does satisfy the problem requirement by the following equalities Therefore, the answer is .
Note that so in modulo , number is congruent to either or modulo , but then .
Continue, so by taking modulo , it gives is congruent to in modulo . Similarly, by considering two equations and , we have and .
These congruences can be put together as is congruent to The first smallest values that satisfy the previous congruence are and it is easy to check that the smallest prime solution is .
And it does satisfy the problem requirement by the following equalities Therefore, the answer is .
Final answer
1009
Techniques
Chinese remainder theoremQuadratic residuesPrime numbersQuadratic forms